About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

October 24......

October 24 is the 297th (298th in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 68 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On The Human Condition "If you smile at me I will understand, because that is something everybody, everywhere does in the same language." — David Crosby {Please note the word is smile not smirk like the war criminal Bush.}

Stupidest and/or Scariest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Hail to the Chief "I'm the commander—see, I don't need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things." — George W. "War Criminal" Bush

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: From Politics "My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and will never, never surrender to what is right." — Dan Quayle, vice president under President George H. W. Bush, is perhaps better known for his verbal blunders than for his politics. Let us pause and remember the ol' days of the first Bush administration, when men were men and a potato was a potatoe. Quayle is Hall of Shame member #3.

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

● 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow.

● 1861 - The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.

● 1871 - Mob in Los Angeles hangs 18 Chinese.

● 1882 - Federal Grand Jury in Arizona charges civil authorities with mismanagement of Indian Affairs on San Carlos Reservation.

● 1882 - Sybil Thorndike, pacifist actress, born, Britain.

● 1892 - Strike of teamsters, salesmen, and packers in New Orleans, Louisiana begins. City trade is paralyzed and within two weeks leads to a general strike in support of the demand for a 10-hour work day. Includes blacks and whites working together.

● 1901 - U.S. Marines land in Samar during the Philippine Insurrection. Brigadier General "Hell-roaring Jake" Smith issues his orders - "I wish you to burn and kill; the more you burn and kill, the better it will please me."

● 1911 - Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years.

● 1912 - First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo concludes with the Serbian victory.

● 1917 - Battle of Caporetto starts on the Austro-Italian front of World War I

● 1917 - The day of the Russian revolution, The Red Revolution.

● 1923 - Birth of radical poet Denise Levertov, Ilford, Essex.

● 1924 - Italian anarchist Ernesto Bonomini gets eight years in prison for killing, with the blow of a revolver, Nicola Bonservizi, correspondent of the Mussolini newspaper "Popolo d' Italia", and secretary of the Parisian "Faisceau."

● 1930 - A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Dornelles Vargas is then installed as "provisional president."

● 1931 - The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.

● 1935 - Langston Hughes's play "Mulatto" opens on Broadway. The longest running play there by an African-American until Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun."

● 1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia

● 1936 - "Boston Chronicle blasts the soon-to-be-released movie "The Big Broadcast of 1937" for featuring a white pianist in the movie while Teddy Wilson actually plays the music - "The form of racial discrimination and falsification of acts...is frequently duplicated by many whites in their daily dealings with Negroes...Negroes, from hands and laborers in other fields of industry, produce billions of dollars of wealth, but the white landowners and sweat shop operators get all the profit."

● 1940 - The 40-hour work week goes into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Decades of labor agitation and a considerable number of lives made this magnificent federal gesture possible, but FDR got the credit.

● 1942 - Recognizing the influence of so-called race music, Billboard magazine creates its first ratings chart devoted to African-American music, The Harlem Hit Parade. The number one record is "Take It and Git" by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, featuring Mary Lou Williams on piano.

● 1944 - World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

● 1947 - Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.

● 1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam {Yes, this was a Republican war.}

● 1957 - the USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.

● 1960 - Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash

● 1964 - Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony)

● 1968 - Yavapai tribe in Arizona wins $5 million settlement for nine million acres taken in 1874.

● 1973 - Yom Kippur War ends, with Israeli forces 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus. {Egypt and Syria discover attacking Israel wasn't such a good idea. Israelis get paranoid about any Arab.}

● 1975 - Iceland - Tens of thousands of women hold a general strike.

● 1975 - Cipriano Mera dies. Anarcho-syndicalist who, during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, organized defense groups, and, with Durruti, the defense of Madrid against Franco's fascists. Headed the defeat of Italian fascist troops in Guadalajara. Afterwards fled to Algeria, then France, where the Vichy government condemned him to death (commuted to life, released in 1945).

● 1977 - Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)

● 1985 - Iceland - Tens of thousands of women had so much fun during their general strike in 1975, they decide to do it again.

● 1986 - Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi was helped by Syrian officials.

● 1987 - AFL-CIO readmits Teamsters Union. Scandal-ridden union was expelled in 1957. The 35-member executive council of the AFL-CIO decides unanimously to readmit the 1.6-million member Teamsters Union to its ranks. Teamsters President Jackie Presser was awaiting trial at the time, and the U.S. Justice Department was considering removal of the union's leadership because of possible links to organized crime.

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About Me

Life long Liberal. Actually saw JFK on campaign trail. Defining moment of my life was the assassination of JFK. First presidential election I participated in was knocking on doors for McGovern, have been tilting at windmills ever since.